Commissioned by Superdrug, the results also noted that Saturdays are collectively more popular than every other day.

Ironically enough, Superdrug were also the company who in 2011 claimed, based on equally sound research of theirs, that women only feel sexy once per week – on a Saturday night (except, of course, when they’re buying the requisite products from Superdrug to feel better about themselves).

So I suppose we have to believe that most women have sex when they aren’t feeling sexy, or that over the last six years the social landscape has shifted by around 12 hours like the libidinal equivalents of tectonic plates. Or, perhaps, Superdrug’s research is meaningless PR guff. Motivated PR guff, indeed:

Conveniently, Superdrug co-ordinated their research with the launch a new range of of sexual lubricants.

It’s more than a little rich of the Daily Mail to play the knowing “conveniently” line here, when they conveniently publish PR non-stories like this on a daily basis in their quest for cheap and plentiful clicks.

Fake tan mitts at the ready! Liverpool is crowned the most bronzed city in Britain knocking the tangoed residents of Essex into second place

Essex has long been considered the tanning capital of the UK, but it appears the home of Amy Childs, Lauren Goodger and co has been out-bronzed – by the tangerine ladies of Liverpool.

Beauty giant Superdrug has released its 2015 Tanning Map Of Britain, which shows the areas that hit the (fake tan) bottle the most. The research found that scousers fake it best while Essex’s Basildon came in second place.

Girls in the north of England are clearly taking the lead from sun-kissed celebrities like former Strictly Come Dancing champion Abbey Clancy, WAG Coleen Rooney and model Danielle Lloyd.

While it’s undoubtedly true that one location in the country must inevitably spend more than others on buying a commonly-bought product, it’s fair to say that’s more of a hook for the story than a piece of groundbreaking research. It’s fairer still to say it’s primarily an excuse to pack the paper with photos of well-known celebrities to draw a little attention to the company behind the story:

The survey found Superdrug stores sell one million bottles of fake tan in the UK each year with 25-34 year olds spending the most on it.

Megan Potter, Head of Beauty at Superdrug said, “It’s fascinating to see a dramatic difference in sales across various cities in the UK.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog (and I understand that ‘regular’ is a bit of a stretch for a blog that takes entire years off at times), you’ll know that some angles are just sure-fire ways of getting yourself some media coverage.

Take, for instance, the claim that women spend large amounts of time applying make-up. Pretty standard stuff, right? It’s a fairly 1980s-comedian, suit-sleeves-rolled-up, stood-in-front-of-a-brick-wall, ‘what is the DEAL with…’ observation, right? Well, that doesn’t stop it making national news, including in the Daily Mail this week:

That’s a lot of lippie! Women spend TWO YEARS of their life applying make-up, splashing more than £12,000 on cosmetics

Sick of being nagged about the amount of time you take to get ready? Well new research shows that our partners may have a point.

According to new research, women spend almost two years of their life doing their make-up.

The recent study suggests that over a lifetime we spend an average of 722 days perfecting our health and beauty regimes – and all that prep doesn’t come cheap.

I know what you’re wondering, and no, that’s not how anybody has ever spelt ‘lippy’. Also, you might be wondering who the company is behind this story, and I won’t keep you in suspense any longer on that one either:

The poll of 1,000 women, commissioned to mark the launch of Vaseline Spray Moisturiser, also revealed that one in ten women will spend up to two hours a day getting ready.

“But a sprayable moisturiser!”, I hear you cry, “That’s going to save me LOADS of time!” Or at least that’s pretty much what Vaseline hope you to think, at some level, when you read this story. It is literally the only reason that this story exists: to highlight to you a problem in your life, and then present to you the solution.

Face value: How the average woman spends £9,000 on make-up in her lifetime

For many women, a new lipstick or eyeshadow can be a cost-effective pick-me – but a new survey has revealed that they will spend an average of £9,000 on make-up in a lifetime…

The poll, conducted by Superdrug for the launch of its new Make Up Academy range, revealed that the average woman spends nearly 20 minutes a day perfecting their look – a total of 330 days over her lifetime.

That’s a LOT of slap! Women spend a year and three months of their lives applying make-up

It’s been said women take a lifetime getting ready and it has now been revealed the average British woman will spend over a year of her life putting on her make-up.

A new survey into women’s daily beauty regimes shows UK women spend a colossal 474 days – one year and three months – in their lifetime putting on cosmetics, the equivalent of over a whole week every year.

Back in March 2010 women were only spending £9,000 on make-up in their lifetime, but by May 2013 they’re spending almost double that amount on make-up that never gets fully used? What a nightmare. I mean, it’s bad enough that women are shedding expensive make-up items left, right and centre, but it’s a further kick in the teeth that the ones most heavily hit are those who try to claw back a few precious minutes from the make-up abyss by multitasking their cosmetic routine with their commute.

Either women’s make-up consumption had doubled between 2010 and 2013, perhaps to keep in line with the apparent exponential growth in the time they spend applying it, or Superdrug must be pretty embarrassed to have originally underestimated their market by such a huge margin. If anyone ought to know how much money there is in the cosmetics market, it should be them. Still, we finally have entirely-accurate figures at least – a point which the Daily Mail celebrated by running the exact same story again, a fortnight later.

Superdrug’s best estimate stood for a few months, only to be challenged in January 2014 by ‘Health and Wellbeing Retailer’ (I know, right?) Beurer:

Women wear make-up for more than half their life: One in five admit they would refuse to open the door while bare-faced

The average woman will spend more of her life wearing make-up than not, according to a new report yesterday.

In a typical day, women will have a face full of cosmetics for nearly 13 hours a day and will have just 11 hours free from it.

Researchers surveyed a total of 2,000 women in a detailed study about women’s make-up habits and beauty routines.

The poll by health and wellbeing brand Beurer found the typical woman puts on her ‘face’ at precisely 8am and spends 11 minutes applying it.

The research discovered that the average women will spend £121 on cosmetics in a typical year and has around 13 items in her make-up bag.

Stick with me, as there’s a bit of maths to do here: if we roughly estimate that women wear make-up from the age of around 16 and continue to do so all the way up to the end of her life expectancy at 71, we can see that £121 per year is around £6,700 across a lifetime. Equally, 11 minutes spent applying each day works out at a little over 153 days. Crude estimates, of course, but it’s clear that Beurer’s extensive and entirely-respectable research comes in way, way below the figures we’ve seen thus far.

However, if anything, Beurer’s research just shows the value of peer review – because a few months later FeelUnique.com hit back, blowing the paltry £6,700 estimate out of the water:

Women spend £100,000 on make-up in their lifetime … and 60% say they would rather ditch their man than go without cosmetics

Ever wondered just how much we spend on make-up over our lifetime, or how much star power really affects the way we shop?
A new infographic reveals just that, showcasing a collection of research from dozens of British surveys into women’s and men’s grooming habits.

This one is a truly staggering finding – not only does it dwarf the previous figure, but it raises all other make-up estimates by an order of magnitude. Our previous record was set by Bionsen in 2011, who estimated the cost of all cosmetic products at £100,000 – yet FeelUnique.com claim their £100,000 figure only includes make-up. That’s a staggering rise of over 1000% from Superdrug’s obviously-accurate and utterly-reliable £9,000 back in 2010.

Clearly, 2014 was a golden age for the make-up industry, who could presumably expect to earn over three trillion pounds over the lifetimes of the 32.2m women in the UK. Strange, then, that the entire cosmetics industry (of which make-up represents a slice) was worth only £8.4 billion in 2013, according to the Cosmetic, Toiletry & Perfumery Association.

Perhaps the CTPA foresaw the oncoming crash of the cosmetics industry, which presumably happened between July 2014 and August 2015 – or how else could we account for Vaseline finding women’s total lifetime make-up spending to be an eighth of of the 2014 ‘research’? And what has happened in women’s lives that mean, according to Vaseline, they spend almost five times as much time applying make-up as Beurer claimed they did in 2014?

In case you’re struggling to keep up, here’s a simplified version of the ‘findings’:

Date

Company

Industry

Time

Money

March 2010

Superdrug

Cosmetics Retailer

330 days

£9,000

July 2011

Bionsen

Deodorant

£100,000

July 2012

St Ives

Facial scrubs

301 days

February 2013

Specialist Make-Up Services

Cosmetic clinic

474 days

May 2013

FeelUnique.com

Cosmetics Retailer

£15,872*

September 2013

Superdrug

Cosmetics Retailer

£18,000

January 2014

Beurer

Wellbeing Retailer

153 days**

£6,650***

July 2014

FeelUnique.com

Cosmetics Retailer

£100,000

August 2015

Vaseline

Moisturiser

722 days

£12,000

* figure is based on how much make-up women lose in their lifetime, not how much they buy** 11 mins per day for 55 years, ie from aged 16 until life expectancy at 71*** £121 per year for 55 years, ie from aged 16 until life expectancy at 71

So, what have we learnt? Well, the next time you see a story in the paper revealing the shocking amounts of time and money women spend on cosmetics, you should bear in mind that the model in the picture isn’t the only part of the story that’s totally made up.

You know how men are completely clueless and baffled simpletons when it comes to anything at all, especially when it comes to their partner? A bit like the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Huffington Post told us recently:

Wife’s bra size? Dress size? Date of birth? This might sound like basic information but millions of men haven’t the faintest idea

Millions of men are completely clueless when it comes to choosing a Christmas gift for their significant other a new survey has found.

39 per cent have no idea what their wives’ bra size is, while another 23 per cent don’t know what dress size she takes.

Most shamefully of all, 12 per cent don’t even know their other halves’ date of birth.

We poor, befuddled, baffled and idiotic men! Millions of us are astonishingly ignorant about our lady partners (presumably the Mail is only talking about heterosexual married couples, it seems). We sit across the breakfast table, staring blankly at the stranger looking back at us, desperately trying to place where we’ve seen her before, and what she does for a living, and what her favourite perfume is. Because knowing your wife’s favourite perfume is one of the absolute most important details you can know. We know this is true for two reasons:

1) The article in the Mail makes this very clear to us:

The survey also found that 34 per cent of men have no idea what their partners’ favourite perfume is and 24 per cent don’t know what her favourite clothes shop is…

…Not surprisingly, the research, conducted by high street beauty retailer, Superdrug, also found that 40 per cent of couples have fallen out because the man has forgotten – or not bothered to ask – about things he ought to know.

That would be high street beauty retailer and perfume seller, Superdrug, informing men that forgetting which perfume your wife wears will lead to a falling out. This comes, bear in mind, one month before Christmas…

2) The article is a near duplicate of an article which appeared in the Mail in February 2010, which also spoke of ignorant men neglecting basic pieces of information on their partners, such as date of birth, eye colour and… favourite perfume:

Think he knows you? Think again! How millions of men don’t know their partner’s dress size, date of birth, or even eye colour

Facing each other over the breakfast table each morning, a husband and wife might think they know everything there is to know about each other.

In his case, he would probably be wrong.

Millions of British males are astonishingly ignorant about their partner’s basic characteristics including clothes size and even eye colour.

This leads to some rather intriguing questions, it’s fair to say. For instance, was the data gathered by the Perfume Society back in 2010 so stunningly accurate that almost three years later it correlates so closely with the figures gathered in a follow up study?

Or, conversely, was the data gathered in the survey commissioned by the Perfume Shop repackaged, slightly updated and then re-sold as being for Superdrug much later? We know for certain Superdrug were behind the latest story, as their press release is still featured on the 72 Point site, so this certainly isn’t a case of Superdrug rechurning the work done for the Perfume Shop brand.

Most intriguingly, if the latter, are Superdrug aware that the stats they’re running with are potentially almost three years outdated? When I called Superdrug’s PR agency Z-PR to ask them, I was told the research was “unequivocally brand new research, which (the PR contact) commissioned herself”. Curious…